If I Were A Boy
by museicality
Summary: Written for SMACKDOWN 2011, Team Courtly Love. Kalasin of Conte is a princess of Tortall. Wyldon is a knight of the realm. Sometimes she's just a princess, and sometimes he's just her knight in shining armor.
1. Arriving

Title: Arriving

Rating: G

Word Count: 320

Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon

Round/Fight: 1/C

Summary: "If I were a boy, even just for one day, I'd roll out of bed in the morning and throw on what I wanted and go": ("If I Were a Boy"—as sung by Reba McEntire. Part 1.)

Years of growing up royal had taken their toll on Kalasin, and even after the talk with her father she presented the Palace with a serene face.

Even after her mother got back with Aunt Buri and the Riders, and after little Liam accidentally let the reason for the tense silence at the dinner table slip to her, she turned a placid face away from the argument that exploded into the room.

Kally smiled into the silence that expanded in the Royal wing, and didn't mention it again.

At the end of the summer, though, Kally sat tucked in a crevice on the wall surrounding the palace, and waited.

The first pages would be arriving today.

"I thought I'd find you here, your highness."

Kally turned sharply, mouth opening in an "O" of surprise. "Excuse me, milord, I didn't see you there," she scrambled to her feet, but Wyldon reached out and stopped her from bowing.

"Since when has the princess reason to bow to me?" he asked gently, and Kally turned the motion into fiddling with the hem of her worn tunic.

"…It just felt like the right thing to do," she muttered, keeping her eyes turned down so he wouldn't see the faint edges of hurt longing creep back in.

"You're watching for the new pages." Wyldon stated, but with no guilt or condemnation in his voice.

Kally's head came up, surprised. "Surely there's no harm, my Lord Wyldon?"

He shook his head, hands clasped behind his back. "None that I can see. While you wait, you might see fit to run a few laps of the wall," he nodded to her well-worn garb, "as you seem to be dressed for the occasion."

She watched as he inclined his head in a slight bow, and waited until he reached the top of the stairs before taking off down the wall.

Hearing the footsteps behind him, Wyldon allowed himself a small smile.


	2. Watching

Title: Watching

Rating: G

Word Count: 305

Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon

Round/Fight: 1/C

Summary: "Drink beer with the guys and chase after girls; I'd kick it with who I wanted and I'd never get confronted for it—'cause they stick up for me": ("If I Were a Boy"—as sung by Reba McEntire. Part 2.)

The new pages were rowdy and boisterous around the palace for the first week before the heavy workload set in. Her father gave Kally permission to eat with him the nights he sat in with the pages and squires, and she thought she'd be able to handle it. She had thought that it would be better than nothing.

The table at the head of the room seated Lord Wyldon, King Jonathan, the Shang Wildcat, and Kally herself.

At first, the conversation was enough to hold her attention, but slowly the noise and the hustle and bustle of the room before them drew her back from the words her father and Eda Bell were exchanging.

She didn't notice Wyldon's eyes on her, didn't notice the small frown that creased his forehead; if she had, she might have wondered at it. Was he regretting her father's request? Or was he second-guessing the idea of a female page altogether?

Kally watched as a familiar face with black hair and blue eyes laughed and joked with his friends. Her brother, so controlled, still fit in here. He fit in like she never would, now, and she pushed that thought away with the part of her that understood what her father had asked of her.

Still, watching the sheer abandon with which these boys celebrated having the freedom to choose… Kally hated to run away, but her hands were already shaking in her skirts, and so she took the first opportunity to excuse herself politely and firmly.

She avoided looking at her father as she left.

"Don't," Wyldon laid a hand on Jon's arm as he moved to push back his chair and follow her. "It won't help, not from you, not now."

His eyes moved from Jon to the hall, where Roald calmly excused himself and exited the room.


	3. Dancing

Title: Dancing

Rating: G

Word Count: 290

Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon

Round/Fight: 1/C

Summary: "If I were a boy, I think I could understand how it feels to love a girl, I swear I'd be a better man. I'd listen to her cause I know how it hurts when you lose the one you wanted cause he's taking you for granted, and everything you had got destroyed": ("If I Were a Boy"—as sung by Reba McEntire. Part 3.)

_A/N: I would love to get some feedback about my writing; if you read my work, please review and let me know! Even a simple response is appreciated! Thank you _

The next time Kally sees the pages, it is Midwinter, and it isn't any better than the last time. As the seasons go by, some of the pain gets easier and some of it stays the same.

When they become squires, the boys have more freedom than they had in Midwinters past, and Kally finds herself on the dance floor with them when her father allows her entrance to the parties he hosts.

Politics and politeness have their places, so she learns how to clench her teeth behind her smile and accept the hand of someone who has the sword calluses and strength that she had once laid claim to in her dreams.

Kally pretends like she doesn't see the look Roald sends her way when he realizes what is going on and dances with her himself, and she definitely pretends not to see her father's satisfied expression when his eyes alight on her.

Let him think her smile is genuine; she really doesn't care if he knows or not anymore.

She is surprised when the next hand presented to her is worn with experience; she looks up into Lord Wyldon's face and blanches, for a moment. But he holds her gaze, and Kally traces the line of the scar across his temple in her mind. She nods; understanding the words in the steady dark brown eyes, and allows him to rescue another of the Conte children.

One dance does not dissuade twenty eager squires, but it glues the smile back on Kalasin's face before she has to accept another dance request from yet another boy.

None of them understand why she can only give them a polite smile, and why she doesn't look back when the dance is over.


	4. Dancing 2

Title: Dancing

Rating: G

Word Count: 506

Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon

Round/Fight: 1/C

Summary: _"If I were a boy I would turn off my phone; tell everyone it's broken so they'd think that I was sleeping alone."_: ("If I Were a Boy"—as sung by Reba McEntire. Part 4.)

Sixteen came and went with the expected fanfare throughout the palace. Kally did her best to enjoy herself at the parties and banquets held in her honor, and her laughter rang true through the halls as her brothers and sisters showered her with their affection on her birthday (and a little mischief too).

She is as glad to be home now as she was to be sent off to King's Reach four years ago.

"Come on; no one will notice if we slip out," Faleron whispers into her ear during a waltz, breathing the words in time with the music.

"But we can't leave together; that's hardly proper," Kally reminds him during a promenade.

"I'll see you in five minutes, then?" Faleron asks as they join hands briefly in a country jig, and he passes her off to her next partner and slips away.

Kally allows the dance to carry her off the dance floor and towards the door, her skin tingling with the idea of the unknown and the forbidden. She slides into the hall like Uncle Gary taught her when she was small; though he would absolutely not condone the use she puts this particular skill to.

The sigh of lovers beyond the low garden walls remind her of why the music of the party—her party—is behind her. She has almost made it, heart beating quickly, to the hall where Faleron had stolen kisses from her at Midwinter when a figure steps out into the moonlight and greets her with a bow.

"Princess."

Kally curtsies politely, recognizing the voice. "Lord Wyldon."

Somewhere between the ages of twelve and sixteen, in the miles between King's Reach and Corus, Kally had dropped the title "milord" and reverted to the more proper and established "Lord Wyldon" when addressing the man who would have been her training master. She knows he catches this, and the set of his head, the faint trace of a smile says that he understands.

"Are you quite alright, your highness?"

Kally feels herself nod regally, but her mind wanders off down the hallway at Lord Wyldon's back. "I'm fine, thank you. Just out for some air."

Wyldon only allows his eyebrows to move the slightest bit higher, but Kally catches his expression.

"Ah," he mentions, and speaks volumes in that short syllable.

"I can look after myself," she says mulishly, "I am sixteen."

Wyldon shrugs, and then simply states, "I am in no position to stop you, your highness. But I have daughters of my own, daughters your age—" images of his girls fill Kally's mind, and she knows inside that he is right, "—and I simply was looking after your well-being as I would theirs."

Kally nodded. "If that is all?" she asks, though it comes out as a statement instead. Wyldon levels a long look at her, but nods.

Kally's feet carry her away down the hallway, but losing herself in Faleron's embrace is hard to do, and now her heart beats fast with anxiety, not passion.


	5. Lying

Title: Lying

Rating: G

Word Count: 246

Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon

Round/Fight: 1/C

Summary: "I'd put myself first and make the rules as I go, cause I know that she'll be faithful, waiting for me to come home, to come home.": ("If I Were a Boy"—as sung by Reba McEntire. Part 5.)

[i]"Oh, Kally, we both know that this is just a dream."[/i]

The Faleron in her mind repeats the phrase that tore her apart over and over again.

Her hands clench and she screws her eyes shut against the hot tears threatening to spill over.

Another dream she cannot have.

"Walk with me?"

She hadn't even heard him coming, but Kally nodded and fell into step besides Lord Wyldon of Cavall.

They end up on the wall that he had found her on so many years ago, the wall that he has the pages run, the wall that she had run every day for so long in chase of something that she knew was out of her reach.

Comfortable silence grew between them, but so did the anger and disappointment in Kally's heart.

"It isn't fair!" she cried out, her slippered foot making no sound as she stomped it on the ground. "Just once, just this [i]one[/i] time, I want to put myself first!"

"Making the rules up as she goes is not the part of a princess," Wyldon reminds her, facing out towards the city and allowing her the moment of impropriety in doing so.

"Maybe I don't want to be a princess."

They both know that this isn't true the moment it slips from her mouth, but Kally won't take it back, won't smooth it over the way that everyone else would expect her to.

"Perhaps you are a better princess because of that," Wyldon suggests.


	6. Realizing

Title: Realizing

Rating: G

Word Count: 268

Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon

Round/Fight: 1/C

Summary: "It's a little too late for you to come back and say it's just a mistake, think I'd forgive you like that; if you thought I would wait for you, you thought wrong.": ("If I Were a Boy"—as sung by Reba McEntire. Part 6.)

The last papers have arrived from Carthak, and the ambassador and his wife wait on one side of her father's study as Kalasin reads them over, one last time, for herself, but she already knows what they say. Her mother and her father have gone over them with her hundreds of times over the last few years until she could recite them from memory.

She takes just another few minutes to re-read them before she signs her name at the bottom and pushes away the paper; she doesn't want to see the last time her signature will recognize her as a Conte.

Kally leaves, then, unable to watch as first Aunt Alanna, then Uncle Gary and even Lord Wyldon step forward to witness the document. The only other people in the room are the ambassadors, and she doesn't want their calculating stares, and her parents whose expressions are probably worse.

Jonathan watches Kally leave, fresh traces of his apologies emerging from under the mask of his formality, and Wyldon is the only one, save Thayet, who sees it. She notices his gaze, and nods slightly.

Wyldon finds Kally in the doorway to the old Royal Nursery; it's been vacated for years, now.

"It's really real." There's no surprise in her voice at his arrival, and Wyldon is surprised at how his heart throbs for her. If she were his daughter… but she isn't, and he can't save her from this.

"…At least, at least I'll be here for Roald's Ordeal," she whispers, thinking of how awful it would be if she were across an ocean on that night.


End file.
